John Lydon says many young girls taking part in Top of the Pops in the 1970s told him about their encounters with Jimmy Savile but were too afraid to report him themselves. Photo / AP

When comedian Ronnie Corbett died in March he was mourned by millions, none more surprising, perhaps, than John Lydon, aka former Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten.

"He did this punk spoof when he was younger," says Lydon, "and the image of him and Ronnie Barker in punk gear was absurd but very funny. I ran into him a few years back at the Comedy Awards and I had to say hello, even though he looked surprised.

"He said, 'You're not angry with me then?', and I said, 'Of course not. I loved you to death, silly!' Humour's always been one of the major influences for me," he adds. "I don't take myself too seriously."

Jimmy Savile. Photo / AP

For a man described in the 70s as "the worst threat to our kids since Hitler", a sense of humour has proved a valuable asset to Lydon. Though in his youth spiky-haired and rotten of teeth (hence the stage name), the John Lydon of today is incredibly warm and dentally magnificent thanks to the orthodontic skills of his adoptive Californian home.

He also laughs far more than someone who once sang of being an antichrist should. He's in Britain on a UK tour with Public Image Ltd, the band he formed after the Sex Pistols. "I love it," he says. "I love that up-close-and-personal contact. And I'm alive! Who on earth would have predicted that?"

Certainly others in his orbit haven't fared as well. Fellow Sex Pistol Sid Vicious died in 1979 from a heroin overdose at 21 after being charged with the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, while Malcolm McLaren, the Pistols' manager once dubbed "the most evil man alive" by Lydon, died six years ago from cancer.
"I felt sad when Malcolm died," he says. "He was rather silly, but so what? The world needs silly people. I still miss Sid too and always will."

It doesn't take long to realise that John Lydon is a bit of a softie. His entertaining appearance on I'm A Celebrity... in 2004 did much to alter people's preconceptions of him before he stormed off the show.

The reasons why weren't clear, but he later claimed the producers had refused to let him know his wife Nora's flight had landed safely in Australia, where the show is filmed. "Years before, Nora and I had been booked on the flight brought down by the Lockerbie bomb," he says, "and it was only because Nora hadn't packed her bag in time that we didn't get on it.

"Ever since it's been vitally important to know the other person is safe. I lost all respect for the producers when they didn't do that. They wanted me to throw a hissy fit for TV ratings, so I just said goodbye."

Being straightforward is something Lydon requires at all times - the reasons for which stem from his childhood. In his 2014 memoir Anger Is An Energy, he describes his upbringing in 1960s north London - a Dickensian nightmare of overcrowding (he lived with his three younger brothers and parents John and Eileen), drunks passing out in the outside toilet and rat-infested backyards - which was brought to a halt when at 7 he contracted meningitis. John was in a coma for seven months, and when he came to he'd lost his memory.

"I couldn't recognise my own mother and father and it was the loneliest I've ever felt," he says. "I had suicidal thoughts. I wanted to jump off the balcony at the hospital because I was thinking, 'Why doesn't anybody know me and why don't I know anybody?' I had to learn how to love and learn to trust my parents, and once I began to trust, things started happening for the better. But the fallout is I can't bear people lying to me: I can forgive all manner of bad behaviour but you have to be straight."

His honesty has led to more than a few problems in the past. In 1978, when the Pistols had been causing maximum outrage and when Jimmy Savile was at the height of his fame, fronting shows for BBC radio and TV such as Top Of The Pops, Lydon gave an interview to Radio 1 in which he called Savile a "hypocrite... into all kinds of seediness... that we're not allowed to talk about". Though the segment wasn't broadcast, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse against the DJ came to light after Savile's death in 2011.

"If you said anything you'd be off playlists, but that didn't bother me as I was doing a good job of that independently," says Lydon. "But first-hand experiences were reiterated to me by young girls who went to Top Of The Pops and said he was touchy, feely, creepy, urgh... Doctor Death. I told them to report it but it would have been seen as grassing then. I knew all about it and said so and got myself banned from the BBC. Family values, eh?" he laughs. "Turns out I was the only one who had any."

Stuart Hall was no Savile but @MailOnline scapegoat him anyway for unpunished crimes of Establishment #VIPaedophiles http://dailym.ai/2fq1b84_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

The Barclay Twins. All there houses are registered in the Virgin Islands and with there love of big boats, i wonder if maybe they have good reason even at this stage, to be running a pro-Hillary Clinton story.

Veteran BBC presenter Bill Oddie has backed claims disgraced Jimmy Savile’s abuse was covered up – because he was friends with Prince Charles.

The Springwatch star, who appeared on TOTP with the Goodies when Savile presented it during the 1970s, said there was a “running sick joke” at the BBC about Savile being a paedophile.

He suggested there might have been some sort of “censorship committee” preventing the truth being released because of Savile’s royal connections.

The presenter also backed claims made by other former BBC presenters that Savile’s antics were well known at the time.

He said: “The idea that youngsters were prey – everybody knew that.

“I was not surprised at all. And the surprise is in a sense that that didn’t happen years ago.

“The establishment or who ever it is decided to keep it all quiet and decided to give him a knighthood. He was, to a certain amount, a friend of royalty.”

He added: “I do not know why it took so long to come to light. That is what I am curious about.

“Whether there is somewhere in Britain, some sort of censorship committee that we don’t know about that suppresses these thing and somebody gets together in a room and says ‘come on he was a friend of Prince Charles, it would look awfully bad on Prince Charles if we said he was a bit of a perv’.

“And someone decides ‘yes you are right, we will keep it quiet, nobody will ever find out.’

“I don’t know who that would be.”

Speaking after a question and answer session with students of Cambridge University’s historic debating society – The Union Society – on Tuesday, Oddie said Savile’s reputation was “just taken for granted.”

He said: “There was just this running sick joke that Jimmy Savile pestered the young youths of both sexes.

“It was just taken for granted. It doesn’t mean anyone thought they must do something about it – and it probably wasn’t realised how serious it was – it certainly wasn’t realised to the extent of the hospital – which is horrendous.

“When this came out it was not a surprise at all. The surprise is that it did not come out a lot earlier and the puzzlement is or the question is was it covered up or did people just chose to ignore it or was there an order and if so from whom, by whom and with whom saying we are not going to allow this to get published.

“It does make you think who would you look at. Would you look at the BBC, the police, would you look at the NHS hospital people? Did they all know and didn’t say?”

He said: “This is not a mitigating circumstance obviously, but the only thing I will say is that that was a time in history in television and radio and live shows where there was a sort of naive groupies scene.

“I do not think the girls were incredibly promiscuous, certainly not the younger ones.
“There were people who hung around after gigs and tried to get to the stars – or the disk jockeys.

“You haven’t half got a booby prize if you went for Cliff Richard and ended up with Jimmy Savile.”

He added: “The thing that you could not ignore was that it was the era of the sort of groupies.

“Not the heavy groupy, but it was an extension of those shots of the Beatles in the 60s where there is hundreds of girls crying and screaming and god knows what – well that was pretty rife.

“My wife was saying the other day about a friend of hers from way back when they went to see the Monkeys and the girl said ‘I am going to try and get in the dressing room’ and my wife said ‘he will only want one thing you know’ and she said ‘yes, I know. that is what I am going for’.

“But that is not quite the same thing as a paedophile – that was just rock bands and includes other people I am sure and is due to availability and other things. The 70s was like that.”

Oddie, who started on BBC radio with his show I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, reiterated claims that former director general of the BBC Mark Thompson must have known what was going on with Savile.

He said: “It is so extraordinary that there is any sort of mystery – when the ex head of the BBC Mark Thompson the other day said ‘I don’t know anything about it’.

“You worked at the BBC and you don’t know anything about it – don’t be ridiculous.

“That is absolute nonsense.”

Oddie claimed Savile “bribed his way out” of getting found out for molesting children in hospital because he was a large donor.

He said: “Anyone of that era knew something – he had a reputation for being a groper.

“The most awful aspect is the idea of molesting kids in hospital – that is just unbelievable. He was sort of bribing his way out of it by giving millions of pounds to the hospital – that is staggering.”

As well as Savile’s contact with children at the BBC, his interaction with sick youngsters at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Sussex, and Leeds General Infirmary, is also being investigated.

reply
William says:
March 9, 2013 at 10:24 am
Joe – A big concern for millions of us who wish to see the truth aired, is that in spite of the reputable Bill Oddie’s comments there has been NO police interview with Prince Charles. If not why not as it is well recorded that he had a close relationship with Saville. I am sure you will agree that millions of us who question his involvement are not naive.

reply
Robbin says:
May 26, 2013 at 4:11 pm
Government officials stepped in to hide Prince Charles’ close relationship with Jimmy Savile when documents about the paedophile telly host were released. Details relating to Savile and Prince Charles were blanked out, so the public was prevented from knowing how close the pair were.
It is only after a seven month battle to reveal the full truth that civil servants were trying to hush up._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

With respect to the Jimmy Savile story, most people have missed the point, and that is that this scandal has been used to justify the implementation of ‘Frontline’, developed by ARK (which links to the Dutroux Scandal).

And if ARK had it in mind that they were to take control of child protection in the UK (they certainly did) , they needed a scandal like the Jimmy Savile one, to justify the ‘revolution in child protection’.

LIZ MACKEAN DESCRIBES HER ANGER AT NEWSNIGHT NOT BROADCASTING HER JIMMY SAVILE PIECE

Ex-BBC News correspondent Liz MacKean has died after suffering a stroke.

MacKean, 52, worked at the corporation until she quit in 2013 over the decision to shelve her investigation into DJ Jimmy Savile.

The full claims Savile was a paedophile only fully emerged a year later during a Panorama documentary on ITV.

MacKean went on to work on Channel 4's Dispatches programme, but in 2016 her work for Newsnight was finally aired in the BBC's Abused: The Untold Story.

Mum-of-two MacKean began her 20-year career at BBC Hereford and Worcester, before presenting on Breakfast and reporting from Northern Ireland and Scotland, the BBC reports.

BBC director of news James Harding paid tribute to MacKean tonight saying she had earned a reputation as a "remarkably tenacious and resourceful reporter".

"In Northern Ireland, she won the trust of all sides and produced some of the most insightful and hard-hitting reporting of the conflict," he said.

"It was as an investigative reporter that she really shone, shining a light on issues from the dumping of toxic waste off the African coast to Jimmy Savile, the story for which she is probably best known."

McKean gained a post-graduate diploma in broadcast journalism at Manchester University before joining the BBC.

Her story about the child abuse committed by Savile made headlines across the world after the BBC was accused of trying to cover-up the story by shelving it.

The investigation, with producer Meirion Jones, was later recognised by the London Press Club with a scoop of the year award.

She also won the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Journalism for her work on a series of Newsnight reports in 2010 about toxic dumping in West Africa.

In a Panorma special about its handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal in 2012 MacKean explained how former Newsnight editor Peter Rippon was initially excited.

But she adds: "It was an abrupt change in tone from one day 'excellent, let's prepare to get this thing on air' to 'hold on'."

MacKean says she was left with the clear impression that Mr Rippon was feeling under pressure.

She wrote to a friend documenting a conversation she had with her boss on November 30 - a month after Savile's death: "PR [Peter Rippon] says if the bosses aren't happy [he] can't go to the wall on this one."

She tells the programme: "I was very unhappy the story didn't run because I felt we'd spoken to people who collectively deserved to be heard and they weren't heard... I felt very much that I'd let them down."

Jimmy Savile in 1990, after being knighted by the Queen CREDIT: RICHARD WATT
Liz MacKean
2 OCTOBER 2016 • 9:00AM
How did he get away with it for so long?” It’s probably the question I’ve been asked more than any other since the truth about Jimmy Savile was acknowledged.

Louis Theroux returns to this question in his new BBC documentary, Savile. In his famous interview When Louis Met Jimmy, shown in 2000, he put the rumours directly to the presenter, to be met with the vaguest denial that now appears confessional.

That’s hindsight for you. But really, how did he get away with it?

The fact is, Savile and his doings shone an unforgiving light on British society and the way it operates. I experienced some of the utter indifference that has for so long kept the casualties of child sex abuse at arm’s length.

When Louis Met Jimmy
A still from 2000's When Louis Met Jimmy documentary, in which Savile showed Theroux the location of his 'love nest' caravan CREDIT: BBC
In 2011, just after Savile died aged 84 and as the BBC was preparing an array of tribute programmes to its DJ and television presenter, I was working with Newsnight's investigations producer Meirion Jones on a story he’d had in his sights for many years: an exposure of the man Savile actually was.

As a teenager, Meirion had visited his aunt who ran an approved school for girls in Surrey. These girls were held under lock and key but could earn privileges. One of these was to be taken out, under a cloud of cigar smoke, by one of the country’s most glittering DJs and television personalities in his golden Rolls-Royce.

We contacted some of those girls, now middle-aged women. Some had never spoken of their experiences; others had complained to the police during Savile’s lifetime. All had been afraid he might sue them, with good reason; Savile was notoriously quick to threaten potential complainants with his suited and booted lawyers.

Jimmy Savile and the BBC - in 60 seconds
01:03
The women told us how he’d cajole and badger them into giving him oral sex. In return for their co-operation, they’d be taken to see his shows being recorded live at the BBC. There, the abuse continued; an inquiry would later identify 72 victims of Savile at the BBC alone.

The victims we spoke to were disillusioned, accustomed to being ignored. Karin Ward, who gave us the first ever on camera interview about her experiences with Savile, told Meirion and I as we left her house: “They’ll never use this."

We disagreed. On our way back to London from her home in Shropshire, we heard on the car radio that the BBC would be including tributes to Savile in its Christmas schedules. No they won’t, we said.

Initially, our interview with Ward and the anonymous testimonies we’d gathered were met with enthusiasm on the programme; editing was booked and a date for broadcast identified. But then there was a change that to us was inexplicable.

Louis Theroux
Louis Theroux put child abuse rumours directly to Savile... to be met with the vaguest denial CREDIT: PETE DADDS
Jeremy Paxman, in his memoirs published last week, recounts this abrupt change on Newsnight, from the story being supported to the about turn in editorial emphasis that was then used to discard it. As Jeremy remembers it, we “bit our tongues and accepted” the decision.

But in fact, we’d argued strongly for our story to be run, convinced that not only was it accurate but that we’d barely scratched the surface. Meirion thought there must a hundred victims, a huge underestimation as it turned out.

When word got out that the story (which subsequently ran on ITV) had been dropped, the BBC insisted that Newsnight was not investigating Savile, but something else: variously Surrey Police or the Crown Prosecution Service.

Newsnight producer warned BBC of scandal
00:25
Professionally, this was compromising enough; personally it was intolerable. In the eyes of the women who had trusted us enough to tell us what had happened, not only had we not run the story, we’d apparently lied about what we were up to in the first place.

The BBC’s publicly stated rationale, including the fact that the story was “celebrity tittle-tattle”, not Newsnight material at all, speaks of a total lack of concern for people who’d overcome decades of silence to tell us what had really happened.

The reason for dropping Newsnight’s story was never explained, even by the multi-million pound independent inquiry that later found the story should have run. Meirion and I were isolated, if not marooned, and the BBC, throughout my career a benevolent employer, had come to feel like a hostile environment.

The reason for dropping Newsnight’s story was never explained - even by the multi-million pound independent inquiry that later found the story should have run
The new director-general George Entwistle’s brief tenure would be buried under the fallout from the false naming of Tory politician Lord McAlpine as a paedophile. This followed a report on Newsnight which should never have seen the light of day, but in the weird aftermath of the Savile scandal had somehow got on air.

In a meeting with the acting director-general, Tim Davie, I’d asked why there’d been no acknowledgement from the top that our story should have run, much less an apology for the way it had been dropped. He sharply reminded me that: “We have lost a director general over this.” Uncomfortable with the ongoing coldness of previously warm colleagues, I took voluntary redundancy.

Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman
After Newsnight dropped its Savile investigation, presenter Jeremy Paxman recalls that the production team "bit our tongues and accepted it" CREDIT: BBC
A short time later, working for Dispatches on Channel 4, my team investigated the late Cyril Smith MP who, like Savile, died a knight of good character, in the eyes of law anyway. They knew each other a bit and would almost certainly have recognised a kindred spirit; charismatic and streetwise working-class men, charming if that worked best and bullying if not. They wore their eccentricities like an armour, shielding their cruelty from view.

Never had I met so many grown men moved to cry; not just because of what Smith put them through, but from a lifetime of asking themselves: why didn’t I just hit him? What they forget is that at the time they were boys, bewildered and often terrified. Like the women we’d spoken to on Newsnight, who’d been abused by Savile, they were in care of some sort and on the back foot in every way.

So why did no one listen? In this case, not only did the damaged boys speak out, they were actually believed. We interviewed retired detectives, sickened by the decision of the then Director of Public Prosecutions to drop the case. "Not in the public interest," he had ruled.

Theroux’s programme is a reminder not just of the extent to which Savile deceived, but of the way in which we were collectively blinded by stardust.

Five years after the Newsnight story was dropped, there has been a shift in attitudes: the convictions of Stuart Hall, Max Clifford and Rolf Harris show that victims can come forward in the expectation of being heard.

One of the first things I did after leaving the BBC was to accept an invitation from the former director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, to discuss ways to improve the handling of historic child abuse complaints.

Savile is awarded at The Radio Academy Hall of Fame lunch in 2006
Jimmy Savile has "shone an unforgiving light on British society and the way it operates" CREDIT: ALEX MAGUIRE / REX FEATURES
The revolving door of senior figures at the national abuse inquiry does not inspire hope. But the inquiry’s enormous scope surely reflects the scale of an issue buried for so long.

One of the curses of child abuse is that children are left to cope in silence: as adults, it’s right they should be heard.

Liz MacKean is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Louis Theroux: Savile is on BBC Two on Sunday 2 October, 9pm

Will the Savile scandal be the last top establishment cover-up to see the light of day?

We heard this week yet more horrors about the BBC presenter, ‘volunteer hospital porter’ and prolific child abuser Jimmy Savile having molested living patients at 28 separate hospitals, as well as testimony that he gained access to at least one mortuary to sexually abuse corpses. But despite Savile having up to a thousand victims, it was only due to the immense courage and persistence of a handful of selfless journalists that the devastating story of Britain’s most prolific ever pedophile and child abuser saw the light of day.

Since the scandal broke in October 2012, the London media have criticized police, royalty, government officials, health service managers and BBC staff for covering up Savile’s crimes, but few if any of these media commentators has admitted to their own vital role in hushing up Britain’s ‘worst kept secret’ for decades. After the shameful sacking last month of Richard Ingrams, who broke the Savile story in his magazine ‘The Oldie’, is there anyone left to break such a scandal again?

'...Liz MacKean, the former British investigative reporter who exposed Jimmy Savile and the culture of pedophile protection at the BBC, has been found dead. She was 52.

MacKean worked at the BBC until she quit in 2013 after executives decided to ban her groundbreaking and brave investigation into predatory pedophile Jimmy Savile in order to protect him and other pedophiles.

Dismissed by the establishment as mad and dangerous, MacKean was finally vindicated when the truth about Savile’s pedophilia eventually came out in 2012, a full year after MacKean first tried to bring his notorious crimes to light.

The BBC, who blocked her groundbreaking investigation from airing and spent the next few years attempting to destroy her reputation, are reporting that she died of “complications from a stroke.”

Acknowledging her life was under threat during the time she was investigating Savile and BBC elites, MacKean said her conscience left her no option but to pursue the truth and expose the culture of pedophila. The mother of two children believed it was her duty.

When it became public that BBC News blocked her investigation from airing, she admitted on Panorama: “I was very unhappy the story didn’t run because I felt we’d spoken to people who collectively deserved to be heard. And they weren’t heard.

“I thought that that was a failure… I felt we had a responsibility towards them. We got them to talk to us, but above all, we did believe them. And so then, for their stories not to be heard, I felt very bad about that. I felt, very much, that I’d let them down.”

Big name stars

Liz MacKean is the second high profile BBC journalist to die in suspicious circumstances after attempting to expose the truth about the pedophile ring operating in the upper reaches of the establishment. Jill Dando, former Crimewatch host, also tried to alert her bosses to the pedophile ring at the BBC, warning that “big name” stars were implicated.

Jill Dando, who was 37, was shot dead on April 26, 1999 on the doorstep of her West London home in a crime that still remains unsolved.

Before she died, Dando had passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, proving that big name BBC stars, including Savile, were involved in a pedophile ring, but senior management chose to cover up the child abuse rather than organize and investigation.

“No one wanted to know” when Dando raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC, according to a former colleague and friend.

“I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.

“I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.

“Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.

“Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye.”

The former colleague said female BBC staff confided in Jill, one of the best-known TV faces of the day after fronting primetime shows including Holiday and the Six O’Clock News as well as Crimewatch.’

The source said: “I think it was in the mid-1990s. She was seen as the face of the BBC and a magnet for women with problems.”_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

'.....Now, you may notice that many of the paintings quite literally depict satanist abuse. Now wouldn't it be convenient if the largest collection of such material was quietly being gathered by who else but Wellcome? The Adamson collection not only stretches to a gallery in Lausanne linked to Tony, but also to a Baltimore 'Visionary' art museum in Baltimore. Suddenly, Tony Podesta's art collection seems to be more significant than once thought. Not to mention some of the exhibited artists who have worked with both Alefantis and this museum.

The reason all of this is important is that it indicates that a heretofore unknown MK Ultra program seems to exist under the guise of "art therapy". And we know it's a lie because the artists are very clearly drawing Satanist Abuse......'_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

HOW ’ S ABOUT THAT THEN?
Savile row
Why did the BBC drop a Newsnight report investigating allegations of sexual abuse
made against its long-serving employee Jimmy Savile? miles goslett investigates
Published 9th February 2012
THE OLDIE – March 2012 edition
When Sir Jimmy Savile died last October he was
given a generallyrapturous send-
off in the press, with fulsome tributes to his charitable
work. Savile’s old employer the BBC
joined in the celebration with two
tribute programmes on TV and one on
radio, all broadcast over Christmas. No
mention was made of the unsavoury
rumours about Savile’s private life which
had persisted throughout his career.
Before the BBC’s tributes were
aired, however, journalists on the
BBC2 programme Newsnight had been
investigating the dark side of the
apparently saintly entertainer. Their
enquiries centred around Savile’s
regular visits during the 1970s to
Duncroft, an approved local authority
school for emotionally disturbed girls
aged between 13 and 18 in Staines,
Surrey, which closed in 1980. It
emerged that in 2007 Surrey Police and

the Crown Prosecution Service had in-
vestigated a historic complaint that Savile
had abused girls at the school but that no
action had been taken.
Newsnight tracked down several
ex-Duncroft pupils, now middle-aged
women, who confirmed that Savile had
molested them when they were aged 14
or 15. At least one woman gave an on-
camera, on-the-record interview to News-
night about the abuse she had suffered.
By any standards this was a scoop
which would have attracted a consider-
able amount of attention. However, at a
late stage the Newsnight report, due to be
shown in mid-December, was dropped.
The BBC’s official line has always
been that the report was abandoned
purely because there were not enough
facts to substantiate a particular angle
they were pursuing relating to the
Crown Prosecution Service. Their
spokesman said: ‘Any suggestion that
a story was dropped for anything other
than editorial reasons is completely un-
true.’ However a BBC News source has
revealed to me that this is a smoke-
screen and there were unquestionably
other reasons underlying the decision.
First, the extreme nature of the claims
about Savile meant that the Newsnight
report was going to seriously compro-
mise the lavish BBC tributes sched-
uled to run later the same month.
And second, the allegations directly
involved the BBC in that the woman
who gave the interview said that she
and others were abused by Savile on
BBC premises. To be precise, she told
Newsnight that some abuse took place
in Savile’s dressing-room at BBC
Television Centre in West London
after recordings of Clunk-Click, a
children’s programme which he
presented in 1973 and 1974; she also
alleged that two other celebrities, both
still alive, sexually abused Duncroft
girls at Television Centre.

I have contacted three women who
were interviewed by the BBC con-
cerning the allegations about Savile.
They allege that he gave them rewards
such as cigarettes, records, and small
amounts of money in return for sexual
favours. Two of the women said that
they also recall being taken for a drive
in Savile’s car in the Surrey country-
side where abuse took place on the
understanding that they could be in
the audience of Clunk-Click. A third
woman said that Savile had committed
one comparatively minor indecent
assault on her at Duncroft but that she
was aware that other girls experienced
far worse.
T
he BBC has serious questions to
answer. The Newsnight investi-
gation uncovered information
of which Surrey Police was not aware,
and moreover allegations were made
about living people. Surely the BBC
had a duty to inform the police about
these disclosures? Yet there is no
indication that it has done so, and the
BBC has refused to answer questions
about this. Furthermore, given that
Savile was on the BBC’s payroll for
more than 25 years, and along with the
other celebrities who are still alive, is
alleged to have abused minors on BBC
premises, shouldn’t the Corporation
have launched an in-house inquiry?
When asked if BBC Director-General
Mark Thompson knew of the Newsnight
report, the BBC refused to comment.
But a source has told me that Thompson
was tackled about the axing of the report
at a pre-Christmas drinks party, so he
cannot claim to be ignorant of it.
The BBC should be aware that
the matter is not at an end. Many of
Savile’s other victims – and those of
other celebrities with whom he mixed
in the 1960s and 70s – are preparing to
speak out.

Features | September 2014
In 2013 Miles Goslett won the London Press Club Scoop of the Year award for an article in The Oldie exposing the reality behind the axed Newsnight report into Jimmy Savile. In the light of a new book about Savile, Goslett points out that the BBC is still concealing the truth about who knew what and when

In 2013 Miles Goslett won the London Press Club Scoop of the Year award for an article in The Oldie exposing the reality behind the axed Newsnight report into Jimmy Savile. In the light of a new book about Savile, Goslett points out that the BBC is still concealing the truth about who knew what and when

Dan Davies’s chilling new book about the life of Jimmy Savile, In Plain Sight (Quercus, £18.99), is not so much a labour of love as a labour of hate – a project which the author felt compelled to tackle in order to get this thorniest of subjects out of his system.

Davies first became aware of Savile in 1980 when, aged nine, he was taken to a recording of Jim’ll Fix It.

He took an instant dislike to the Yorkshireman, forgot about him for several years, but in adolescence re-discovered him and became gripped by the dark side of his character long before anyone else was prepared to admit to having suspicions about him. He compiled a ‘Savile Dossier’ of press cuttings of his ‘increasingly odd pronouncements’, convinced he would one day use it to bring down
the BBC star.

It’s amazing to reflect now that Davies was conscious of Savile’s warped mind only thanks to things Savile himself said publicly and the various books he published in the 1970s and 1980s in which he aired his disturbing opinions on a range of matters, notably sex.

After becoming a journalist in the 1990s, Davies’s semi-obsession prompted him to interview Savile several times over a period of seven years, so he is probably one of the few people who can claim to have known this notoriously tricky man in any depth – in so far as anybody could really know him, of course.

Yet even if he wasn’t able to use the dossier to bring Savile down during his lifetime, he has certainly nailed any lingering doubts about him post-death with this well-crafted, if horrifying, account of how he so casually ruined lives through sexual abuse and duped a nation with his undoubted mental agility. The stories Davies tells of Savile’s foul deeds are so relentless no sane individual would find it easy to get through this book. For those who manage it, though, a fascinating account awaits.

If one is seeking anything positive from the Savile scandal it is that his death was the trigger for other abusers being brought to justice. In recent months Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford have all been convicted of sexually assaulting young women and girls, their victims emboldened, perhaps, by the media and Crown Prosecution Service’s reactions to the Savile case.

Some people believe that other well-known men are destined for the dock for the same reason. We shall see.

Meanwhile, the Government has felt it necessary to launch a public inquiry into historical child abuse and the latest BBC inquiry on the same subject, chaired by Dame Janet Smith, is scheduled to report this autumn.

This sea change in the public’s attitude is ultimately attributable to one person: Meirion Jones. He is the BBC producer who mounted the six-week Newsnight investigation into Savile which informed the world of who the DJ really was – even though, ironically, Jones’s film was never broadcast.

Jones’s investigation, in which he was brilliantly helped by reporter Liz MacKean and researcher Hannah
Livingston, had been developing since the 1970s and was ready to begin on the day Savile died in October 2011.

Jones’s aunt had been the headmistress at Duncroft School, an all-girls approved school in Surrey. When Jones visited the school as a child four decades ago, he recalled seeing Savile there and was instinctively doubtful of his motives. He tucked the memory away, prepared to react if he ever had reason to do so.

Sure enough, in 2010 he received confirmation from an ex-Duncroft pupil that Savile had abused children.

And so I return to Jones’s abandoned Newsnight investigation. Even though Savile is dead, the BBC continues to be silent about who within its ranks was aware of what it unearthed and what they did about it.

Despite recent promises to restore public trust in the wake of the Savile scandal, and having spent millions of pounds of public money on various inquiries which have so far shone only a dim light on its secretive workings, the BBC has chosen to become enmeshed in a spider’s web of half-truths and non-denial denials best described as a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up. If this sounds complicated, it is not.

Back in February 2012 Richard Ingrams published an article in The Oldie written by me describing Newsnight’s investigation of Savile’s unhealthy interest in children. Ingrams was the only editor in the national media who was prepared to run this piece.

Although essentially complete, Newsnight’s film had been axed in what remain mysterious circumstances in December 2011. I was tipped off about its contents. I was also made aware that BBC executives had agreed that, having cancelled the Newsnight project, tribute programmes praising Savile should be shown over the Christmas period. Abandoning Newsnight’s film was cover-up number one.

In the Oldie article – published in the March 2012 issue and still available online – I named the then BBC director-general Mark Thompson as one executive who, I believed, knew all about Newsnight’s investigation.

At the time, I wrote: ‘When asked if BBC director-general Mark Thompson knew of the Newsnight report, the BBC refused to comment. But a source has told me that Thompson was tackled about the axing of the report at a pre-Christmas drinks party, so he cannot claim to be ignorant of it.’

The Daily Telegraph and the political website Guido Fawkes both repeated my assertion within 48 hours. On the day my piece was published, a Telegraph journalist called Tim Walker also emailed Thompson, asking him if the Oldie story was true.

Thompson did not reply. At that time he was busy lining up his present job as chief executive of The New York Times. Even the slightest connection with a paedophile scandal could have scuppered his chances of securing this lucrative American post.

Proving just how different the climate was only two years ago, The Oldie’s story about Savile never caught fire among the mass media at the time of publication. Thompson escaped scrutiny.

Nevertheless, I carried on asking the BBC press office about his knowledge of Newsnight’s investigation right up until September 2012 – the month Thompson left the BBC.

Although I never got an answer, I pursued this line because it struck me that the head of any organisation sets its tone.

If Thompson, as BBC editor-in-chief, didn’t know about Newsnight’s investigation of Savile, I thought he should know; but if he did know about it, and was content to pretend that he did not, his colleagues would probably be happy to follow his lead and also bury the inconvenience of Savile’s alleged abuse. Either way, the licence fee-paying public would be interested.

It is worth repeating that Newsnight had interviewed women who claimed Savile had abused children on BBC premises and heard evidence of which Surrey Police, who had previously investigated Savile, were unaware. By any standards, the BBC surely had a duty to inform the authorities of Newsnight’s findings and Thompson, as the BBC’s most senior employee, should have done this personally.

I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the BBC in April 2012 asking what Thompson knew of Newsnight’s film – the BBC refused to answer. I rang Thompson’s office in May 2012 and told his secretary that I wanted to speak to her boss about Savile’s abuse of children on BBC premises in the 1970s; she said Thompson was away and later claimed to have forgotten to pass on my message to him. And in August 2012, while working on a separate story about Savile’s abuse for The Sunday Times Magazine, I put a series of questions to the BBC asking what Thompson knew of Newsnight’s project. I also asked what Helen Boaden, then head of BBC news, knew of it.

The BBC’s response, on 6th September 2012, was to spend £803 of licence fee money asking the law firm Mills & Reeve to write a letter to The Sunday Times threatening to sue if it
published any story stating that Thompson or Boaden had been involved in suppressing Newsnight’s Savile/sex abuse investigation.

The law firm therefore acknowledged on its clients’ behalf that such an investigation had taken place, but it was careful to keep Thompson’s and Boaden’s fingerprints away from this acknowledgement.

Even though I had never intended to write that Thompson personally had suppressed Newsnight’s investigation, The Sunday Times decided the project was too problematic and my piece was jettisoned.

In the meantime, ITV had been working on its own explosive Savile exposé. When it was broadcast later in September, gaining national attention, the BBC was forced to act.

In particular, questions were asked about why it had axed its Newsnight report nine months previously.

The corporation’s response was to set up the Pollard Review, an independent inquiry chaired by ex-Sky News boss Nick Pollard. This £3 million inquiry was conducted over eight weeks. When published it was presented by Chris Patten, at the time the head of the BBC Trust, as a brilliant example of truth-telling and swamp-draining.

Yet Patten overlooked the fact that Pollard had failed to identify in his report which BBC executive had decided to axe the Newsnight investigation – for no individual was prepared to take responsibility for that.

And, having interviewed Thompson during his inquiry and considered all of the evidence detailed above, including my Oldie article, Pollard used his report to clear Thompson unequivocally of having had any knowledge of any allegation against Savile during the eight years that he ran the BBC.

Pollard’s clearing of Thompson was the second cover-up – something I can state with confidence because of what happened next.

In February 2013 Pollard rang me up and, in a conversation which I taped, admitted that he had excluded key evidence about Thompson from his report.

Pollard volunteered to me that Helen Boaden’s lawyer had written to him during his inquiry saying that Boaden had personally informed Thompson of Newsnight’s Savile investigation and its contents a day or two before Christmas Day 2011.

According to Boaden, she was in London when Thompson, visiting the BBC’s new offices in Salford, rang her to ask about it, having been tackled about Newsnight’s investigation at a drinks party – exactly as I had written in The Oldie. Boaden says she told Thompson all about Newsnight’s investigation.

This means, according to Boaden, that Thompson allowed the BBC to air the tributes to Savile even though he also knew that two Newsnight journalists had heard claims about his abuse.

No mention of this was made in Pollard’s report. Instead, Pollard wrote that he had ‘no reason’ to disbelieve Thompson’s pleas of ignorance. A misleading statement if ever there was one.

In what sounded like a crisis of conscience, Pollard told me during our phone call: ‘It is clear that it is Helen Boaden’s view that she told Mark Thompson [in December 2011 about Newsnight’s investigation]’.

He added: ‘I overlooked that … If I had thought about it I would have included it in my report ... It was a mistake of mine not to have picked up on this and recorded it in my report.’

Pollard encouraged me to write a news story about this shocking oversight but asked me not to name him as the source. I complied (the story appeared in The Sunday Times in February 2013) but when I asked him about it a few days later he closed down the conversation. Our relationship, such as it was, had ended.

I was angry that Pollard had put me in a situation where I was being used to slip out a key failing of his report – but with no consequences for Pollard or Thompson – so when the Tory MP Rob Wilson asked me about this development, I gave him chapter and verse, for public interest reasons.

Over the following months, Wilson wrote to Chris Patten, whose job was to represent the interests of licence fee payers, several times explaining Pollard’s woeful error.

Patten stonewalled tediously, so on 19th November 2013 Wilson sent him the tape recording of Pollard’s damning confession to me. Patten initially sent Wilson a veiled threat, suggesting legal action might ensue if he gave the tape to anybody else. On 11th December 2013, he held a meeting attended by three other BBC trustees. Between them they concluded, implausibly, that Pollard’s confession did not change the outcome of the Pollard Review. Patten declared that the ‘independent’ Pollard report could not be altered and so, to date, it remains a misleading document.

Patten is therefore responsible for cover-up number three.

Taken to its logical conclusion, does this mean that the BBC Trust regards Boaden – now the £350,000 head of BBC Radio – as an unreliable witness?

For if the Trust is siding with its ex-employee Thompson, it must be rejecting Boaden’s account.

What is particularly interesting is that Thompson has never asked The Oldie or The Daily Telegraph or the Guido Fawkes website to remove references dating from February 2012 which state that he knew about Newsnight’s investigation of Savile but did nothing.

I emailed Thompson and several
of his New York Times colleagues for the purposes of this article asking why, since he is so convinced he never heard any allegations about Savile until
after he quit the BBC, and has been cleared by the Pollard Review, he has not asked for a total retraction from each publication.

Richard Ingrams resigns as editor of The Oldie despite founding title in 1992
Said to have had a long-running clash with publisher James Pembroke
Quit saying he was 'too old' to attend disciplinary meetings
Magazine has a circulation of 44,000 copies according to recent figures

By Jennifer Newton

Published: 22:40 AEDT, 31 May 2014 | Updated: 22:05 AEDT, 1 June 2014

The editor of The Oldie has resigned from the magazine after a dispute with the owner and claiming he was 'too old' for disciplinary hearings.

Richard Ingrams, 76, announced his decision to step down and leave the publication after an alleged long-running clash with the magazine's publisher James Pembroke.

It is thought Mr Ingrams, a former editor of Private Eye, was summoned to a meeting with the publisher to discuss the magazine's recent fall in circulation, but he refused to attend.
Richard Imgrams, who has quit as editor of the Oldie magazine claiming he is 'too old' for disciplinary meetings
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Richard Imgrams, who has quit as editor of the Oldie magazine claiming he is 'too old' for disciplinary meetings

However, after being requested to attend a disciplinary meeting, Mr Ingrams instead chose to quit.

Mr Ingrams co-founded the Oldie, a current affairs title for the over-60s in 1992 and since 2001, it has been published by the firm James Pembroke Publishing.

On the firm's website, Mr Pembroke is described the chief executive of James Pembroke Publishing and as having published magazines for over 20 years, starting with the company in 2001.

He told the Independent: 'It’s surreal – trying to discipline the 76-year-old founder of your own magazine.

James Pembroke and Josephine Pembroke
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Mr Ingrams founded the title in 1992 and in 2001 it was acquired by the publisher James Pembroke Publishing
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Publisher of The Oldie, James Pembroke, left with Jospehine Pembroke has been publishing the title, right since 2001

'I would really have loved to have carried on but it hasn’t proved possible with this guy.'

Mr Ingrams added that he will now take time to complete the biography of journalist Ludovic Kennedy.

Mr Kennedy was best-known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley.

It is unknown who is set to be appointed as the editor of the title.

The Oldie has a circulation of around 44,000 according to recent figures, which represents a 20,000 circulation growth in the past 20 years.

The publisher James Pembroke Publishing has 15 titles in their portfolio and also publishes apps, brochures and catalogues.

Mr Pembroke is also the author of the book, Growing up in Restaurants, which was published last year.

It charts the history of dining experiences from the Roman occupation to the 21st century.

According to the James Pembroke Publishing website, he is experienced in all aspects of publishing and has expertise in subscription marketing.

A member of the royal family was involved in a suspected paedophile ring, an ex-policeman has claimed.

But investigations into the allegations were 'shut down for national security reasons', the former Metropolitan police officer said.

The officer said he was told by fellow officers that both a royal and an MP had both been identified as part of a major child abuse inquiry in the late 1980s.

He told the Sunday Mirror how a detective sergeant from Marylebone police station in London - who also named actor Oliver Reed in separate claims - revealed the investigation had been pulled for national security reasons.

The source said: 'I was in a car with two other vice squad officers. They were discussing a madam who had provided a girl of about 15 to Oliver Reed.

'The detective sergeant said he had just had a major child abuse investigation shut down by the CPS regarding a royal and an MP.

'He did not mention names, but he said the CPS had said it was not in the public's interest because it "could destabilise national security".'

The former Metropolitan Police officer said he was told by fellow officers that both a royal and an MP had both been identified as part of a major child abuse inquiry in the late 1980s

Sir Allan Green, Director of Public Prosecutions, told the Sunday Mirror he he was not aware of any paedophile investigations shut down for national security reasons.

He added that he'd been asked if he knew anything about an MP being involved in child abuse but he hadn't.

The information has since been passed on to police.

The news comes after it was revealed that Scotland Yard has been accused of facilitating 14 cover-ups of VIP child sex abuse.

Over 35 years, officers are said to have protected ‘untouchable’ figures by shutting down inquiries that reached the heart of government.

The 14 alleged cover-ups were referred to watchdogs by the Metropolitan Police Service itself yesterday. It threatens to be the biggest investigation into police corruption since the 1970s.

The allegations were uncovered by detectives probing claims of historical sex abuse first raised by Labour MP Tom Watson in October 2012.

Those on the inquiry, known as Operation Fairbank, are understood to have raised concerns after studying files kept in storage.

The claims include one that police deliberately stalled their inquiries into the Elm Guest House, in Barnes, south-west London, leaving dozens of boys to be abused.

Victims claim that high-profile politicians, diplomats and civil servants visited the property to abuse boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Officers are also accused of releasing paedophile MP Cyril Smith without charge after he was caught in an undercover operation at a sex party involving teenage boys.

Police are also accused of failing to end sex parties at the now notorious Dolphin Square complex, in Pimlico, central London, following the intervention of ‘prominent people’.

It is claimed that members of a wealthy and powerful elite believed they were ‘untouchable’ after police were warned off shutting down the sordid activities.

One senior figure under the spotlight is former Tory home secretary William Whitelaw, who is accused of demanding that police drop an inquiry into a paedophile ring.

The politician, one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest allies, is suspected of quashing a year-long investigation into a gang accused of abusing 40 children.

Other inquiries focus on claims that the names of high-profile sex attackers were removed from witness statements and that police deliberately let senior politicians off the hook.

One inquiry is examining allegations that Special Branch seized a dossier naming 16 MPs and peers handed to an investigative journalist by a former Labour minister.

Paedophile: A detective says he was ordered to cover up Cyril Smith's crimes by senior colleagues

Unbelievably, two undercover officers are themselves suspected of sexually abusing a boy during a raid at the Elm Guest House. The IPCC is still considering two further cases, including the shadowy murder of eight-year-old Vishal Mehrotra in July 1981.

His family believes he may have fallen into the hands of members of the VIP sex ring and evidence leading to their door was deliberately ignored.

Sarah Green, of the IPCC, said police and her officials were examining claims that evidence was suppressed, investigations were hindered and halted and offences covered up.

‘These allegations are of historic, high level corruption of the most serious nature,’ she said. ‘Allegations of this nature are of grave concern and I would like to reassure people of our absolute commitment to ensuring that the investigations are thorough and robust.’

Defending the decision to ‘manage’ the Met inquiry, rather than undertake an independent one, she said: ‘The new criminal investigations looking at alleged police corruption are closely linked and well under way.’

Mrs Green said this decision remained under review and could be changed if new evidence came to light. Responding to the inquiries, Mr Watson said many child abuse victims will have mixed feelings but will be pleased that their voices are now being heard.

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